Denmark backtracks on world’s first ‘fat tax’

Denmark's so-called "fat tax," a special price hike targeting high-fat foods, has been deemed ineffective and will be abolished, the government announced today, reported BBC News.

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The Danish tax ministry said the "fat tax and the extension of the chocolate tax — the so-called sugar tax — has been criticized for increasing prices for consumers, increasing companies' administrative costs and putting Danish jobs at risk," said Agence-France Presse. 

Forty-seven percent of the Danish population is considered overweight and 13 percent obese, according to BBC, giving rise the government's tax on foods containing over 2.3 percent fat.

The measure, implemented with great fanfare last October, does not appear to have helped stem Danish appetites. 

Tax officials found that "the fat tax has, to a lesser extent, contributed to Danes traveling across the border to make purchases," said AFP, one likely culprit — these days — being neighboring Germany's famously sweet-laden Christmas markets.